From the Boiler to the Pitzer

[By Pete Scully in Davis, California]

Recently I held a talk at the UC Davis Design Museum in conjunction with an ongoing exhibition of ten years’ worth of my sketchbooks called “Conversations with the City: Pete Scully, Urban Sketcher”, which runs until November 13th (see the UC Davis Arts website for more information). I talked about why I sketch, how I sketch, why you should sketch and also about using the sketchbook as a tool for recording history and change. To illustrate this idea, I showed a series of sketches going back six years, showing one particular spot on the UC Davis campus undergoing a huge change. I always liked the old Boiler Building (below), a dusty orange block with broken windows and cracked red roof tile, filled with creepy looking industrial guts and rusting pipes. It was a thing of beauty. I was told back in 2012 I had to quickly sketch it while it was still there, because it was about to be demolished and replaced with something shinier (but probably more useful).

I drew it loads of times (these are just a few), having my own conversation with it in its final years. And then, in late 2012, the demolition crew finally rolled in.

…and then it was gone. And thus it remained, until 2015, when work on the new Music Recital Hall, to be called the Ann E. Pitzer Center, finally began.

Then in September, in time for the new academic year, the shiny new Pitzer Center opened to the public with a weekend of performances. I attended the show given by the Music Faculty and Students, which included a beautifully haunting rendition of Puccini’s “Crisantemi”, shown in the bottom sketch of this post. I can still hear the music when I look at the sketch.

Recording the journey of a place through a period of history means you are watching it grow up, capturing moments that will never be seen again. the final sketch I will do of this building is at the top of this post, and that is how I expect it to look if I should come back and sketch it in 20 years time. Having watched its birth and growth, and the decay and death of its predecessor, so closely with my pen, I feel like I have a relationship with the building (or its exterior at least) that belongs to me. So sketchers, get out there and draw those changing scenes, make them yours! Catch them while you can.

The complete set of sketches can be found in the Flickr set “From the Boiler to the Pitzer“.